Dive Transient:
- Georgia Southern College is poised to take up East Georgia State School after the College System of Georgia governing board authorized a merger plan Tuesday.
- The board’s vote follows USG Chancellor Sonny Perdue’s suggestion for the consolidation final week. Tuesday’s motion marks “step one in a cautious course of that can take greater than a 12 months,” the system stated.
- The brand new establishment will retain the “identification” of East Georgia State, which has struggled with enrollment declines in recent times. On the identical time, it can grow to be a part of Georgia Southern and might be led by the latter’s president, Kyle Marrerobased on the announcement. The consolidation requires the approval of the establishments’ accreditor.
Dive Perception:
Perdue trumpeted the consolidation of Georgia Southern and East Georgia State as a strategy to spend money on key larger schooling capabilities — particularly pupil success and diploma entry — by saving on administrative prices and decreasing tutorial program overlap.
“Through the use of public assets as effectively as doable, we’re ensuring each greenback saved is reinvested into these packages that actually empower our college students, assist our school and strengthen our communities for a brighter future,” Perdue stated in Tuesday’s announcement.
Georgia state Rep. Butch Parrish — who represents Swainsboro, which is residence to East Georgia State and 40 miles from Georgia Southern — praised the plan.
“It’s important that because the system streamlines and operates extra effectively, we safeguard entry to larger schooling within the native space and maintain the EGSC spirit going,” Parrish stated in an announcement.
Now that the board has greenlit the merger, the establishments plan on rapidly forming an implementation workforce with representatives from each schools to work out particulars, the system stated. That workforce may also put together and submit the required paperwork for approval by their accreditor, the Southern Affiliation of Faculties and Colleges Fee on Faculties.
USG and the establishments plan on holding campus and group listening classes to hunt enter on the brand new establishment’s design, with the primary one slated for Wednesday on East Georgia State’s campus.
Of the 2, Georgia Southern is by far the bigger establishment. As of fall 2023, the college enrolled 26,041 college students to East Georgia State’s 1,756, based on federal knowledge. Georgia Southern’s enrollment has been comparatively steady, declining 1.4% between 2018 and 2023, whereas East Georgia State’s fell by 40.3%.
The bigger college additionally has a a lot deeper catalog of packages in comparison with East Georgia State, which based on its web site provides six affiliate and three bachelor’s diploma packages.
The deliberate consolidation is the newest transfer in an effort going again practically 15 years to pare down Georgia’s state college system. To this point, USG has undertaken 13 consolidations. From these, it has saved $30 million in administrative bills that it stated it has reinvested into pupil providers and school and employees hires
As soon as the Georgia Southern and East Georgia State mixture completes, USG could have 25 establishments, the system stated.
